Accidentally Trading Places
by Enelya
Summary: Pandemonium reigns supreme when the Fellowship of the Ring and their respective 'Harry Potter world' counterparts swap places..........


Disclaimer: I'd like to own the things mentioned in this fanfic, but as usual somebody's got them first. Jane Austen owns 'Pride and Prejudice', and the Norwegian hamster belongs to Faulty Towers.  
  
AN: nothing much you really need to know. Reviews/feedback: yes, please, please, otherwise I might have to do something productive for the next three weeks.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Come, my readers, gather round and hear me tell of a tale forgotten. Come, leave the world as you know it and fly through the mists of time, to a world long-forgotten in the tales of Men. Listen, as I tell you of warriors brave and true. Listen, as I tell you also of they of magic blood, who came to their aid, and how, together, they triumphed over the enemy that could tear our lives apart.........  
  
"SODDING STORM!"  
  
Be not alarmed by this strange speech, my readers, for the tongues of the peoples are as yet clumsy and crude, and many times the seasons will turn before they shall change..........  
  
"SHUT THE SOD UP!"  
  
I myself am rather unforgiving of this way of speaking, readers, so I think I shall leave you to it, it's mostly straightforward.  
  
"GO THEN!"  
  
I shall.  
  
"GOOD!"  
  
"Aragorn, who are you yelling at?"  
  
"The Narrator." Aragorn pointed to a rock where she had been standing (in full 'prophetess/Galadriel' costume) but she had vanished. "Oh. She's gone. Good."  
  
"Aragorn, would you please stop yelling? I'm trying to read." Elrond had appeared in the doorway with his copy of 'Pride and Prejudice'.  
  
"Yes Elrond," Aragorn said automatically, and went back to what he was doing: staring out the window swearing at the storm, although at a slightly lower volume.  
  
The members of the newly-created Fellowship of the Ring also went back to what they were doing, although there wasn't much to do. Gandalf and Gimli went back to sleep, although how they managed to was anyone's guess, considering the noise level of the storm. The hobbits kept playing Mon Opolë, an Elvish game which involved a lot of buying and selling castles. Legolas resumed braiding his hair, and Boromir continued to search for something that was remotely readable (no chance, taking Elrond's taste in books into account).  
  
This situation requires an explanation, I think. (Hey, that rhymed!) Remember how it was all bright and sunny the day they actually became the Fellowship of the Ring? Well, the weather was fine up until the next day when they started to get ready to go on the actual quest. It had started raining so hard that anything outside that wasn't rock or wood had turned into mud, which had a tendency to act like quicksand and swallow things up (this explained Bilbo's disappearance for several days). In short, Rivendell had been turned into a swamp, which made travel very difficult since the roads now resembled wet concrete.  
  
You think that this shouldn't have put the Fellowship off, because they were the Fellowship and nothing could stop them? You thought wrong. They'd taken one look outside and decided that the task of destroying the One Ring could wait until they could start walking out of Rivendell as opposed to swimming. They'd assumed that it would stop raining after a few days. Three weeks, five days and seven hours later, they were kicking themselves for not starting off on the day it had been dry, because Rivendell, although interesting, becomes very, very boring when you're stuck there for a long time. So yes, the Fellowship was bored. What they didn't know was that in another time, in another world, nine other people were also wishing they could be anywhere but their present location......  
  
"Somebody kill me please."  
  
"I would, but somebody has to kill ME first."  
  
"You don't need to be killed, it's quite likely you're going to die at least twice today if Trelawney's anything to go by."  
  
"Do you two still believe what that old fraud says?"  
  
"No, but I'm hoping her prediction that I'm going to die right now quickly and painlessly will come true by pure coincidence."  
  
One guess where the Harry Trinity was.  
  
Potions, everyone's favourite class first thing Monday morning (they were just waiting until hell froze over, it'd only be another few millenniums). Even Snape looked like he didn't want to be there. Hell, even Malfoy wasn't entertaining them with his usual sarcastic comments. It didn't help that they were making a potion that did exactly the same thing as soap and was therefore rather pointless. It was also one of the easiest potions they had ever made, (boil water, put soap in water, put various herbs in water) which, although they were relieved not to have to pay too much attention to what they were making, left a lot of space for sitting around doing absolutely nothing.  
  
This period of monotonousness was taking its toll on other magic people as well. In his office, Dumbledore was attempting to have a deep philosophical discussion with a house elf, who was wishing it was safely back in the kitchen washing dishes. Oliver Wood had increased the quidditch practices to seven times a week, not because of an oncoming match, but because there was nothing else to do, and nobody had complained. Sirius had been wandering around in broad daylight, hoping that he'd be noticed because escaping the dementors would give him something to do, and Hagrid had been making up poetry about dragons, blast-ended skrewts and hippogriffs (this was the real reason he lived quite a long way from the castle as he tended to give recitals, thankfully the walls blocked out the sound, for which the students and teachers were eternally grateful).  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Back in Middle-Earth:  
  
"Hey, I've found some drink!"  
  
"Where?" the rest of the Fellowship stopped what they were doing and gathered around a small cupboard that Aragorn was looking into.  
  
Frodo peered in. "Aragorn, those are pressed flowers."  
  
"Foolish hobbits, never thinking about hidden layers." Gandalf tapped the cupboard. Nothing happened. He kicked the cupboard, which caused the pressed flowers to disintegrate, showing a false backing and a sign reading "Warning: contains dangerous objects. Keep out of reach of children, hobbits and Aragorn". Aragorn ignored the sign and pulled away the backing, to reveal seemingly endless rows of bottles filled with a semi-transparent, purple liquid. He grabbed a bottle, opened it and took a swig without a second thought. The rest of the Fellowship watched with interest.  
  
"Hmmmm, fizzy." Aragorn giggled.  
  
"What does it taste like?"  
  
Aragorn looked thoughtful. "Vanilla coke, mostly, but there's something else." The rest of the Fellowship looked at Legolas, who probably had the best sense of taste.  
  
Legolas took a bottle and drank. "Orange sherbet. That explains the smell."  
  
Exactly 42 seconds later they were all in possession of a bottle and were discussing the ingredients of the drink.  
  
"So we've agreed that it contains vanilla coke, orange sherbet, apple juice, skimmed milk, and curry powder. Anything else?" It had been decided that they would write the ingredients down so they could make more of the drink, and since Legolas was considered to have the best (i.e. most intelligible) handwriting, he had been giving the job of recording the ingredients.  
  
"There's still something else."  
  
"I agree, I just can't put my finger on it."  
  
"Something elusive......"  
  
"Maybe it's got something to do with the way it's mixed or something."  
  
"Maybe, but somehow I don't think so."  
  
"Powdered lembas?"  
  
"No, I've had powdered lembas."  
  
"I'm fresh out of ideas then."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"Me three."  
  
"I agree."  
  
"Well whatever it is, it tastes good."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What if Elrond comes in and finds us drinking it?"  
  
"Sod Elrond." Something in the drink had gone to their heads, and they were now getting rather pleasantly drunk. It didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered except the drink, and Manuel the Norwegian Hamster agreed.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"What colour is this potion supposed to be?"  
  
"Bottle green, it says here."  
  
"Well it's pink."  
  
"Hmmmmm. Maybe we should let it boil a bit more."  
  
"It's already been boiling half an hour more than it's supposed to."  
  
"I've got a better idea. Let's forget about following the rules and just throw in random stuff."  
  
"We'll fail!"  
  
"So? It's just potions."  
  
"Yeah Hermione, where's your sense of adventure?"  
  
"And what could possibly go wrong?" (Harry, Harry, Harry. Let me count the ways.)  
  
"We'll get into terrible trouble."  
  
"Somehow, I don't think Snape really cares what we're doing right now."  
  
"Prove it then."  
  
"Alright." Harry put up his hand and waited for Snape to noticed him. After a few minutes, he decided stuff that and called out.  
  
"Professor?"  
  
"Mfhm." Snape was looking and talking like a zombie while correcting essays.  
  
"We're messing around with potions."  
  
"Mfhm."  
  
"Slytherin's just won the house cup for the fifteenth year running."  
  
"Mfhm."  
  
"Hogwarts has been sold to an international terrorist organisation."  
  
"Mhfm."  
  
"I've been expelled."  
  
"Mfhm."  
  
Harry turned back to Hermione. "See? He doesn't give a damn."  
  
Hermione had decided she didn't want to have anything to do with their little game, however, and started on the essay about yet another goblin rebellion they had been set for history. Harry and Ron knew from experience that to get between Hermione and homework was to ask to be sent to the hospital wing in a matchbox, so they left her to it.  
  
Ten minutes later they had been joined by Dean and Seamus, the rest of the Gryffindors were putting in suggestions and even the Slytherins were looking interested. Snape knew exactly what they were doing, but had decided that it would take up too much energy to go and stop them, so the Gryffindors considered it one of the best potions lessons in recorded history.  
  
Then things started to go rather strange for the inhabitants of both worlds. When the Fellowship found themselves travelling down the tunnel of coloured light à la 2001: A Space Odessey, they assumed that it was just another interesting side effect of the drink, which had been christened Floojuice. Then there was the bit when they were in space with strange green code writing going down. Then there was the part when they found themselves on a couch in the middle of a cricket match at Lord's Cricket Ground, England. Then they found themselves outside a castle that bore the name Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (although they didn't know that, of course).  
  
Their respective counterparts in the wizarding world had gone through a similar experience and had appeared in Rivendell holding various things: a sherbet lemon wrapper (Dumbledore), a potions essay (Snape), a dead rabbit (Sirius), a broomstick (Oliver), a cauldron (Harry, Ron, Dean and Seamus) and a piece of paper with part of a poem on it (Hagrid). Elrond was currently trying to work out who these strange people were and where they had come from, and the quickest way to get rid of them.  
  
"What happened exactly?"  
  
"Well I think we were really bored--"  
  
"And then we started flying down this tunnel with weird green code stuff--"  
  
"And then we ended up on a couch at Lord's Cricket Ground--"  
  
"And then we were flying down this tunnel of coloured light--"  
  
"And then we ended up here."  
  
All this sounded strangely familiar to Elrond, but he just couldn't place it. "Well, I have absolutely no idea how you got he-- wait a minute." Elrond frowned. "There's nine of you."  
  
"So?"  
  
And suddenly it clicked. Apparently they'd gone through parts of the Matrix, a scene out of Life, the universe, and everything, and 2001: A Space Odessey.  
  
"Did you.......um.......drink anything weird beforehand?"  
  
"We made this." Harry proffered the cauldron. "We weren't planning to drink it though, at least not until we put in the curry powder."  
  
Elrond looked at the cauldron, which contained a purple, semi-transparent liquid. Oh god, not Floojuice.  
  
Back in the wizarding world, Professor McGonagall was racking her brains to think of a way to get these strange, smelly people as far away from Hogwarts as possible. Several possibilities had been: give them a portkey to Brazil, sell them as slaves on the black market or turn them into frogs, all of which would require a lot of explanation and time. Since nothing really good had come up, she decided to let them into the castle for the night at least and see how things went. Then she noticed something. There were nine of them. And she hadn't seen Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid, Wood or four Gryffindor boys going by the names of Harry, Ron, Dean and Seamus for a while...........Oh god.  
  
McGonagall gritted her teeth and made a mental note to make a new rule about anybody using Floojuice would be expelled, because it tended to cause a lot of strange things that included various people swapping worlds. Those people from the Matrix and the other group who'd called themselves X-Men had been bad enough, but they at least showered once in a while........  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Review! Please! Please!  
  
~Enelya 


End file.
